


Driving Big

by MJ (mjr91)



Category: Boston Legal
Genre: Automobiles, Cars, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-28
Updated: 2012-04-28
Packaged: 2017-11-04 11:49:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjr91/pseuds/MJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Denny offers Alan a luxury sportscar.  Alan wants something more... pedestrian?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Driving Big

In the suburbs, you owned an automobile. It was something Alan Shore had almost forgotten, having spent the past five years living, instead of in a house as he once had (the memory of his old friend Ellenor taking a drunken midnight dive into its swimming pool would never quite go away), in the plush but not particularly homelike confines of better hotels, most recently a suite at the Langham. 

To be fair, the suite at the Langham was an upgrade – he'd been elsewhere previously, staying at a hotel with two fewer stars and sheets with a thread count at least 150 lower; the Langham had been a move the year before he married. Somehow, Denny Crane had talked him into it, claiming that the hotel was closer to the office, and that the beds were more comfortable. Denny was right about that, as well he should be; he'd had at least one call girl at a time at least once in every luxury hotel in the city at one point or another. He liked the Langham, Alan had capitulated, and Denny had Alan at least once during most of the "sleepovers" that had wound up at Alan's hotel. Of course, he'd also had him at least once during most of the "sleepovers" in Brookline.

The problem with hotels is that they are not homelike; the problem with homes is that they are not hotel-like. The Langham's masseuses, although all legitimate, alas, were directly on the premises; the pool, unlike Denny's, was indoors; the bar featured a professional bartender and whiskies you didn't even know you wanted until you saw them; you could call the desk to rent a car if you actually needed one; and, quite obligingly, there was always room service. 

Denny had an outdoor pool, though it was meticulously maintained by a professional service, just as the lawns and plants were maintained by another; the housekeeping staff consisted of Denny's housekeeper of fifteen years, Rosita, and whoever Rosita hired to do the more tiring cleaning that Rosita deemed less important: bathrooms were scrubbed by the maids she hired, while Rosita herself saw to it that the master bedroom was in order, that the bar was stocked, that the usual groceries were purchased. Rosita cooked many of the dinners, and when more than her culinary skills were needed, she called for a cook or a caterer. Rosita was the perfect wife who lived on the other side of the house, and that you never slept with.

Rosita, however, had an automobile but was not one herself, and so Alan, along with forsaking indoor pools and twenty-four hour room service – he had discovered his first night at Denny's that Rosita definitely considered her time to be on the clock, and that clock stopped at eight in the evening – had been thrust into the indignity of actually having to purchase a car. Denny had offered him one of his, having more than enough for a small army, but although they tended to share the Jeep Cherokee and the Lexus (Denny's Porsche was untouchable by anyone else except as a passenger, and you were lucky for that invitation), Alan really wanted to buy one of his own. That took a little work, as Denny was only too willing to buy Alan anything he wanted, and had recently taken to murmuring the word "Lamborghini" in Alan's ear at night in the sincere belief that all males on Planet Earth considered it a sexual stimulant. Alan wanted something more… more… no, make that, "less likely to be pulled over by any police officer in sight of it". 

Denny might be only too willing to buy Alan a barely-street-legal Murcielago, but Alan Shore could be surprisingly conservative about a good many things, and a car, in his mind, should be unobtrusive but of excellent engineering. A Lamborghini with wing doors was not unobtrusive, and was prone to expensive repairs.

And so, Alan had, on his own, ventured out to purchase an amazingly unobtrusive, sparklingly new, perfectly engineered, black-as-midnight Saab. It was distinctly unlikely to be targeted by state troopers, it could be repaired for slightly less than an arm and a leg, it could attain reasonably high speeds in a reasonably short time, and it radiated an odd suburban respectability that did not scream "Look at me!" upon being seen. It was not a Denny Crane vehicle. Maybe Denny would buy the Lamborghini for himself – now, that was something that was unmistakably a Denny Crane automobile. The Maybach, which Denny only brought out of the garage for special occasions, was a Denny Crane vehicle, albeit a more subdued one, and one for which Denny often hired a driver. A Saab raised far fewer concerns about valet parking. Denny thought the Saab was boring. Alan adored it, and left it remarkably free of newspapers and disposable coffee cups.

Alan and the Saab drove from Brookline to Newton, past the Chestnut Hill Reservoir, to a white Colonial-style home that had plainly never seen the colonial era. He parked and pulled a loaded briefcase out before ringing the doorbell.

"Alan!" Carl Sacks was in a sweater and corduroys, looking every bit the New England WASP he absolutely was not. A recent Manhattan transplant who was on the board at Temple Shalom, Carl was somehow now Alan's second-best-friend-who-wasn't-Denny, a status that had been highly improbable until the Chinese invasion of Crane, Poole & Schmidt. Alan had known that Carl respected his work, and that as one of the two managing partners, he'd done his best to avoid chewing Alan out regularly for Alan's frequent flashes of irregular and occasionally unethical genius, but friendship had been a sudden development, based as much in their joint weddings as in the fight that had divided the firm. "You look well. Walking out seems to agree with you."

With no partnership interest to contend with, and not in need of immediate salary as fellow associate Katie Lloyd was, Alan had been the first of the litigation department to walk out on what had temporarily been known as Chang, Poole & Schmidt and was currently converting to Chang, Lewiston. Denny was insistent on never leaving his office and balcony, having struck a monumental revenge by buying the firm's office building from its landlords and sending it eviction papers. Rather than leaving the firm and demanding their cut from their partnership interests, Denny, Carl, Carl's wife Shirley Schmidt, and Alan's best friend Jerry Espenson had occupied and fortified their office spaces, claimed retention of their partnership interests, and were cheerily forcing everyone else out. "I told you we could fire the new ownership," Alan chuckled as Carl brought him into the library. I just thought it would be prudent to get the hell out of Dodge before Chang found me."

"You'll have your pick of office space when we move back in," Carl told him. "Denny's probably going to want you in the adjoining office, you know. I'm planning on a construction order for a connecting door so he doesn't have to blurt unnecessary sexual references out in the hall. It was bad enough before you got married."

Shirley Schmidt was out, but had left a plate of sandwiches and pots of coffee and tea on a side table near the fireplace for Carl and Alan. Carl poured coffee for both of them and handed one of the mugs to Alan.

Alan looked at the mug. It was white with cobalt blue and gold trim, and it spelled out "Crane, Schmidt & Shore" in logo format. "She went for it."

"Shirley's already got the letterhead and business card design, the coffee mug design, and everything else you can put a graphic on worked out," Carl sighed. "She has a niece who's a graphic designer, and hired her to do it. I gather that only two votes were considered necessary – Shirley's and Katie's. They liked it, it's not girly, I guess we'll live with it."

"Denny won't care as long as his name's first on the door," Alan assured Carl. He picked up half of a roast beef and swiss cheese sandwich before sitting. 

"I still don't understand why you didn't at least go for second billing. The whole thing's really your idea; you could have gone for first name."

Alan stared at Carl as if he were a headmaster who had found a particularly foolish student. "You're joking. You are joking, right? All of this is Denny's money, every bit of it. That's the first part. Beyond that, I don't care how well known I am, or how popular Shirley is – Denny's still the rainmaking name. I've never even cared about being partner anywhere as long as I've gotten left alone to do what I do best. Wind me up and let me go, and I'm fine. I'd be happier if my name didn't have to be on the door at all. I may be many things, Carl, and not all of them are reputable – well, probably most of them aren't – but one thing I've never been guilty of is egomania. I don't need my name on the door as long as my name's on the brief. And, whenever possible, the check. Crane and Schmidt; Crane, Schmidt, and Sack – whatever, would suit me just fine."

Carl shook his head. "Sorry, Alan, I think that makes two of us. Better someone else's name than mine. I went into law to do the work, not to polish the nameplate. I understand."

"No problem. Anyway," Alan said, wiping his fingers and reaching for his briefcase, "I have a draft of the proposed partnership agreement here for you to look at. This is Denny's and my work. I'd suggest that after you and Shirley look at it, you and Jerry make the final revisions. You'll be managing partner, so you'll know best if this is really workable, and Jerry's… Jerry's…"

"Jerry is the king of anal retentive, detail oriented, methodical number-crunching," Carl summarized for him as he took the hard copy and a CD from Alan. "If he's happy with it, it's gold." Jerry Espenson had been a friend of Alan's for a few years, and the two enjoyed a mutual admiration society of sorts, with Alan amazed by Jerry's research and detail-orientation, and Jerry in awe of Alan's litigation skills. Jerry and Carl were not quite friends yet, but as two parts of the Crane, Poole & Schmidt litigation team secession, and with Katie Lloyd, Jerry's girlfriend, under Carl's wife's wing, they were in the process of growing closer.

"If he's happy with it, chances are even I can't find a way to break it." Alan went back to the side table for another sandwich. "Get back to me on that within the week. Have you got those financials worked out?"

Carl pulled a folder and a laptop computer from behind the couch. "Got 'em right here. I don't know if I can do what Paul did back when, but I might be able to avoid Paul's letting the numbers go straight down the drain when things get rough. We have a lot of capital here, so I'm looking at a base of very conservative investments to keep things stable – with as much capital as Denny's thrown in, a low return on investment is still a ton of money."

Alan watched, sipping more coffee from Shirley's newly designed mug, as Carl set up the laptop. "Better safe than sorry – we learned that the hard way this past six months. Paul didn't do us any favors."

"Too bad he couldn't time the firm's investments as well as Denny times his," Carl sighed. "I don't know what the hell attracted Paul to sub-prime mortgages."

The younger lawyer boggled. "He didn't."

"He did." Carl began opening spreadsheets for Alan's review, and they began working. Investments weren't Alan's strong suit; he relied on his stockbroker – who was also Denny's, as Denny had referred Alan to him when Alan had won his wrongful termination case against Young, Frutt and Berlutti. Alan let his broker do whatever magical things stockbrokers did, listened to Denny's opinions when offered, and did, for the most part, fairly well with the money he had. Others might think his portfolio substantial, but it was miniscule compared to Denny's. 

What Alan knew about corporate stock was what he'd learned while working in antitrust law, and it wasn't enough to become an investment wizard. This end of the law firm planning was far better suited to Carl and to Jerry Espenson, who understood the mysteries of Wall Street; Alan's understanding of finance was confined to a knowledge of the mysterious, formerly smoke-filled conference rooms in which questionable mergers and buy-outs were planned. 

After an intense hour and a half of discussion, explanations by Carl, more caffeine, and a search through Alan's briefcase for an elusive small bottle of ibuprofen for the headache spreadsheets always gave him, Alan had stuffed his head as full of financials as the confines of his brain would allow. "So, Carl," he said, glad to change the subject, "how's married life treating you?"

Carl smiled. "Not much different than before we got married – only now I don't have to pretend I'm not living with Shirley. How's it going for you?"

A smile played at the corners of Alan's lips even as he shrugged. "As you said at our wedding, Carl, I married Denny Crane. It is never not an adventure."

"If you don't mind my saying so, the adventure is obviously doing you quite well."

"It is." Alan sank back into the couch, relaxing. "Aside from a small dispute with Denny in which I have tried to explain that a Lamborghini is not my deepest wish, being married to Denny is in fact an extremely satisfying experience."

"I can't imagine those adjectives apply to… all circumstances…?" The comment was joking but tentative. Exactly how far Denny and Alan had gone in their relationship was the subject of great and weighty pondering among the small group who knew them well enough to wonder. A somewhat larger group took a sexual relationship between them as a foregone conclusion – it had even been thrown at the two of them in court by both lawyers and judges in the past – but those who knew them well tended to find the question more perplexing. The marriage had only made it more confusing.

Alan cast an eye upon Carl, who was working on not blushing now that he'd asked. "True. As I say, Denny can be positively infuriating when he's completely taken with a notion. The idea that I am desperate for a Murcielago is the one he's smitten with right now. Other than that," he said, looking carefully at his friend, "yes, I am quite satisfied. Thoroughly so. And I do know what you're not asking me."

"You. And Denny. Are."

Another shrug. "We are. I'm bisexual, Carl – I love women, but I've never said I was straight. And Denny's definition of homophobia is that he can't stand drag queens or male hairstylists with poodles. I only wear dresses at Halloween and I don't dye my miniature dogs to match my cashmere sweaters. It's not what anyone does that's the issue for him; he does it himself -- it's purely an inbred Republican inability to handle certain stereotypes. Denny's a veteran; he hunts, he fishes, he has a tailor, he likes women, therefore, he's not one of those people. I'm not one of those people. Barney Frank's not one of those people – he's just a Democrat. Liberace was one of those people. Paul Lynde was one of those people. And Denny is sure that those people have a special place in hell. One that takes men who dress peculiarly and don't buy Brooks Brothers."

"Whereas Denny –"

"—has a special place in Heaven that's solely reserved for major Republican contributors. Regardless of whom they've married."

"I hate to say this, but I almost understand him."

"Worse yet, so do I."

A noise – an impossible, incredible, rumbling and grinding noise assaulted both men's ears. It was the noise of some unearthly machinery, perhaps the machinery of a Republican Heaven come to Earth to find its blessed few. 

Carl turned around and moved a curtain aside to look out the window. "What the –" 

It was in the driveway behind Alan's Saab, and it was huge, and red, and sleek, a chariot come to take Republicans to meet their maker at 180 miles an hour. And as the wing door rose on the driver's side, a racing-gloved Denny Crane emerged, all beatific smile and cherubic beaming. Carl raised the window slightly. "Denny?"

"Is Alan there? If he doesn't want to play with his Murcielago, can I keep on taking it for a ride?"

Carl turned to Alan. "There's three hundred thousand dollars of bright, shiny, brand-new Lamborghini in my driveway, and Denny's driving it."

"I'm not here, Carl. I died. I'm in jail. I went to Wellesley and was mugged by a dozen horny sophomores. I don't need the Lamborghini."

"Then you won't mind?" Carl returned to the window. "Hey Denny, can I try driving that baby around the block?"

"Sure – let's take it for a spin on I-95 and back! And hurry up, or the engine's going to cool down!" 

"You're on!" Carl scrambled to find his jacket. "Just let yourself out, Alan. Shirley should be home soon. Later!"

Alan began packing his briefcase. Nothing more was going to happen today, certainly. He heard Carl racing out the door to try out the Lamborghini. Really, he should have known that he couldn’t stop Denny from having ordered it, and it was only fair that Denny should drive it – it was a Denny Crane car, after all, flashy, expensive, startling, and totally extraordinary, exactly like Denny himself. 

He looked out the window again, as Carl clambered into the passenger seat like a teenager on his first joyride, and as Denny's face lit in utter excitement as he prepared to take the as-yet-untamed beast on another spin. He smiled to himself; it was impossible to begrudge Denny anything that could make him so happy. If the car was going to do that, let it – he'd let Denny teach him to race the damn thing, and if Denny wanted him to take on Denny and his Porsche 911, he'd do it. Even if the state troopers dragged both of them in for drag racing on I-95. Carl would bail them out now that he'd been in the Lamborghini; Alan was certain of that.

He exited the house, locking the door behind him, and climbed into his Saab. He liked the Saab. It was comfortable, soothing, and peaceful.

It was exactly what Denny Crane wasn't.

It was a wonderful car. It was exactly what he needed for commuting, for going shopping on the weekend, for driving up to Vermont for a few days.

But that didn't really do for him all the time, did it? If it did, he'd never have gotten past the moment when Denny had pulled Alan to him and asked him if he'd been ready to move their relationship to the next level, only moments after they'd left court on his wrongful termination case and well before Alan had ever expected to be approaching anything like the issue of sex with his own attorney. 

It didn't do to be complacent all of the time, and five years of Crane, Poole & Schmidt had made him far too fat and lazy. Starting the new firm was work, but it really wasn't an adventure – it was the same six friends doing the same thing, in the same offices they'd had before the takeover. He'd almost allowed himself to forget what Denny hadn't – sometimes, maybe a lot of the time, you needed to go out and have an adventure, to get your adrenaline pumping, to remind yourself that good Scotch, Cuban cigars, expensive suits, large offices, ridiculously comfortable beds and regular (even if sometimes lousy) sex were as much of a trap as anything else was.

In short, he needed… Denny Crane. Alan started the car, backed out of the driveway, and headed back toward Brookline. He was married to Denny Crane; maybe he needed to take a piece of his own advice to Denny. He needed to learn to race that Lamborghini. "Live big, Alan. Live big."


End file.
